little what-ifs and alternate universes
by Grey Foxes
Summary: What would happen if something small changed?
1. Chapter 1

Summary: This isn't about the Winchesters This is a story about what-ifs. This is a story about Jess, about Ruby, about Bela. This is a story about those that didn't get one.

Let's talk about Jessica Moore.

Let's say she lives.

Let's say that when she let Brady into her and Sam's apartment she knew something was wrong by the way he smiled when she wasn't looking. Let's say she got out her daddy's pistol that he had pressed into her hands when a quiet look and told her that she was taking this or not attending college.

When Brady started setting the apartment on fire, Jessica escaped through the fire escape before he could pin her to the ceiling.

But someone had to die that night.

It was Bree Tanner, the blonde who lived one floor up and frequently came down to snitch Jess's cookies.

She was pinned to the ceiling and set on fire with Sam Winchester's screams filling her ears.

Jessica Moore was ten blocks away, cutting up her credit and debit cards. Brady knew how to follow those.

She placed them in the trash, and bought a small backpack from the Salvation Army four blocks from her current location.

She attends her own funeral, watching her daddy cry and Sam's tears fall down his face. She bites her lip and slips away.

-

She hitches a ride with a truck driver the same age as her father and gets off three cities away from Stanford.

She gets off with a fake smile and runs smack into a blonde her own age and the same feeling of wrongness that Brady had when he set her home on fire.

-  
Let's talk about Ruby.

Let's say that she refused Lilith's offer- Ruby's heard stories about Lucifer's distain for his own creations and doesn't feel like being on the bottom of the new hierarchy he'll create when he gets out- and fled hell with her in Crowley's debt, the only thing tying them together is their mutual distain for Lucifer.

Let's say she's looking for Sam Winchester- to warn him or kill him, she's not sure yet- and runs into his girlfriend instead.

Let's say that Ruby helped Jessica steady herself and got a pistol pointed at her face in return.

"Hey," Ruby says, backing up and releasing Jessica, "what's that for?"

Jessica glares. "What the hell are you?"

Let's say Ruby smiles, and let's her eyes flood black. Let's say that Jessica doesn't drop her pistol. Ruby, impressed, will hiss "Demon," and Jessica will cross herself with the hand that's not holding the gun.

This is the start of something beautiful.

-

Can we say that Ruby took utter delight in showing Jessica what the world they lived in really looked like? Can we say that Bela Talbot, yes her, the one that everyone loves to hate, heard of the knife that Ruby wields like an extension of herself and came to investigate.

Let's say that Ruby was the one that Bela came begging to, on that crossroads nearly ten years ago. Ruby wasn't impressed by her then, and still isn't now.

Let's say that Bela steals the knife.

Let's say that Jess is the one that tracks her down and is the one that takes the knife back while Ruby smokes in their stolen car. Bela takes that as a challenge.

Ruby, a little more impressed, calls up Bela's contract and changes it into indentured servitude.

What? It's not like demons can conjure up money. Where did you think they got it from, when they fulfilled greedy human's dreams of riches?

Bela gets to tag along in their fucked-up road trip.

-

Let's say that the angel's get wind of Jess being alive.

That is not allowed, in their shiny new game of apocalypse, and they inform hell.

Crowley hears word of that- he is King of the Crossroad, after all- and tells Ruby.

She slaughters the first demon sent after Jessica. Jessica catches his partner and Bela watches, hooded eyed, as the demon tries to get out of her devil's trap. Ruby snaps at her to stop playing, and Bela idly flings the second knife of Kurd that she'd gotten hold of so long ago- what, did you think that Ruby had the only one?- and watches as the knife hits the demon in the heart and it dies screaming.

They clean up the bodies and move on.

-

Can we say that the hunting community- as small as it is- starts hearing whispers about a trio of girls taking down demons and dismiss them, because really, how could girl's be clever, or strong or brave? They ignore Ellen Harvelle's reputation and Tamara's Fox's but, as with most male-dominated professions, there are not a lot of women hunters.

But, hunting isn't what they do.

Not really.

Bela gathers information on Lucifer, while Ruby rallies up allies and dreads the favor she owes Crowley, while Jessica lures in demons with a pretty smile hiding the glint of a knife in her waistband.

Can we say that the first time the Winchesters meet Ruby, it's still at the Seven Sins wrecking their way through town?

Ruby's bored. Bela's out on a job of the criminal variety, and Jess had just bought a vibrator that she thinks that Ruby doesn't know about, so she slips out of the motel room to a town that's starting to bathe in blood.

Let's say that they meet the same way, but a final comment from Ruby gives Dean pause and Sam utter rage.

"By the way," she'll say, smirking, playing with the keys in her hands, "Jessica says hi."

She starts the car, waves as they dart out of the house and leaves them eating exhaust. She snickers.

What? She's still a demon. It's her job to raise hell and cause chaos.

Let's say that Ruby walks in on Jessica and gets pegged in the head by a heel. Ruby snickers and shuts the door and goes to a nearby bar to find her own amusement.

-

Can we say that when Sam finds out that Jess is alive, they get into a massive screaming fight that lasts about a week and ends up in fabulous make-up sex that then ends with them breaking up?

They've both grown so much. They're very different people now.

Can we say that this is the exact moment that Bela finally calls, breathless with excitement.

"Hey," she says through the lines, "I found out about what's keeping Lucifer down under. And what will keep him down under."

The girls put their plan into action as soon as they kick the Winchesters out.

Of course, it's too late.

Dean makes the deal.

Ruby finds herself approached by Lilith again, whispering false promises into Ruby's ear, and Lilith screams are loud when Jessica plants the knife in the stomach of the little girl she's inhabiting with shaking hands, and Bela slits her throat with the other.

Dean still gets saved by Castiel.

Can we say that the seal's still get broken, but since Lilith is so very dead and burned and scattered in running water, the seals merely tighten the door on Lucifer's prison?

Can we say that Bela makes money running supernatural items and Jessica and Ruby still hunt idiotic demons that attempt to go after them?

Can we say that after all the seals are broken, and Lucifer is about to rise, that Lilith never shows at the church and the angel's rage at the disruption to their plans?

Let's say that the demon's- oh let us send Meg- let's say Meg is chosen to go see her Father, as she affectionately calls him, and why he is unable to escape. Let's say that she discovers that the last seal was cracked much before the first one, and as such, made the whole attempt worthless.

Let's say that Crowley had a real easy time taking Hell's bloodied throne while Meg is looking at the cage. When Meg came back, it was to Crowley's smirking face and Alistair's cold clutches. Alistair, after all, has never cared about sides, only in the dark beauty of his lessons.

Can we say that the Winchesters still do their own thing, while the girls make an adamant point about avoiding them? Can we have a story about reluctant goodness from the blackest of hearts, and the corrosion of one of the purest with the best of intentions? Can we have a story where the girls laugh at the angst of the men and get shit done? Can we have a story about recovery, and absolution?

At the end, the only thing that hangs over Bela Tabolt, Jessica Moore, and Ruby is the favor that Ruby owes to Crowley.

But that is a different story.


	2. Chapter 2

Can we say that it was John that went to check on Sam that night, not Mary? Can we say that when she went to go check on Sammy, what she came into was her husband pinned to the ceiling, bursting into flames as soon as she looks up?

Can we say that she snatched Sam, woke up Dean and was halfway down the stairs when the flames started to lick their way down after her?

Can we say that as soon as it was considered proper to do so, she took off like a bat outta hell from Kanas.

She said once that the worst thing she could think of is her children as hunters.

Let's say that she moved to South Dakota, into Sioux Falls. Let's say she meets a bitter and broken Bobby Singer.

Let's say that she raises her children as best as she can until a hunt comes knocking on her door.

She'll dither, but she'll go.

I think that Dean and Sam were always meant to hunt, and John and Mary were never meant to raise their children alone.

I think that Mary will break her own private promise to herself, and I think that she'll always regret it. 


End file.
